


It was not your typical family reunion...

by ImaMePanda



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Big Sisters, Drugs, Families of Choice, Gen, Marijuana, Mischief, Road Trips, Spanking, Unconventional Families, stoners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 02:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3710890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaMePanda/pseuds/ImaMePanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just how much trouble can four stoners get into? When your trapped in a van on a cross-country road trip for two weeks-apparently a lot. Riley-Ann didn't know just what she was signing up for when she agreed to go to this family reunion, and she's still deciding if it's worth it...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was not your typical family reunion. Especially because I wasn’t related to anyone there. 

When the Millard’s invited us along, me, my friend Shane, and his girl Katie were all a little skeptical. They are pretty much our parents, second parents at least, since me, Shane, and their kid Bobby have been kicking it over there since forever. They even took Shane in for a while, about a year or so, till we all got old enough to move out, when his Dad kicked him out.

So while we weren’t surprised at the invitation we weren’t really sure we wanted to go. Basically stuck in a van for about five trillion miles, with what’s for me, your two brothers, plus a sister, your parents, add in your sister’s boyfriend, and one of your brother’s girlfriends. 

You remember those road trips you took as a kid? Your parents thought they were fun. You, you thought they were torture.

But Bobby looked at us out of desperate brown eyes, and pleaded, “Please, please, Shane, Riley-Ann, my best friends, my soon-to-be saviors. Don’t leave me alone in a car with Tina and Jay! Please, you know how crazy she is. I can’t get out of this, the least you guys can do is come with me!” 

We were not impressed. We did indeed know how crazy she was. That was exactly why we didn’t want to be trapped in a car with her. Sister or not, the bitch is nuts.

“I’ll throw down for all the bud. And we won’t share with her.” 

Me and Shane shared a considering look, and turned back to Bobby, who had moved from his position on the top bunk to kneeling in front of us. 

“How much bud?” Shane said suspiciously. 

“I’m getting a huge paycheck next week, from that Overton job. I’ll save part of it and o buy an ounce before our trip, of the good shit, I swear to God.” 

“Dude, deal, deal!” I said now excited as hell, the trip was only two weeks long, that would be enough to keep us high literally the entire time, plus plenty left over. Honestly, it was beyond excessive, we’d wind up making ourselves sick probably-but we’d have fun.

“Hell, yeah man, you know I can’t say no to that,” said Shane, grinning and bobbing his blonde head around. 

“You sure you have that kind of money to spend man?” I asked, a little sceptical.

“Yeah, dude, its chill. I wouldn’t have offered if I couldn’t afford it.” 

“So,” said Shane in his best casual voice, i.e, his ‘I’m not trying to get away with something' voice, “Want me to through down for the alchy?” Bobby looked at him and glared, and Shane blushed a bit. I kept my mouth shut; this was between the two of them.

“Yeah, you don't drink, so I don't know why you'd want to waste your money.”

Shane glared, annoyed now, “C'mon, man, don't-”

“You don't drink.” Bobby tried to sound calm, but it came off as more patronizing than anything, and Shane stood up, leaving the room and a moment later we heard the door to his room slam shut.

“Smooth dude.”

“What was I supposed to say, huh?” Bobby snapped it out then flopped backwards on his bed. “Fuck this.”

******

So four months later we all ended up on the road, although not all of us in the van since us and all the stuff for camping wouldn’t have fit. At first we thought we were getting the good end of the deal, get to ride in the van with Sue driving, and leaving poor John to chauffeur Tina and Jay in the car.

We were wrong. First of all, when you get to a point in a friendship where you consider someone a brother or sister, they become a brother or sister-and are just as annoying. At one point Bobby and I even started playing the don’t touch me game-as in I’d be reading or daydreaming, and next thing I know he’s hovering his finger a millimeter away from my ear or nose, or the back of my neck, hissing “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you.” just low enough so Sue couldn’t hear, while Shane giggled hysterically next to him. It’s like being in a preschool, I swear to god.

Second of all we were stuck with the non-weed smoking parent. 

Now, neither parent knew we were transporting an ounce (or what was left of it after last night…and this morning) across state lines because-well, because they would have killed us. There would be screaming and tears, and quite possibly flying body parts. I’m sure that’s a felony even if we aren’t planning to sell it.

But John would have wanted us to bring some-and well ordinarily he was against stoned driving, road trips were different. We learned that when we went camping a couple of summers ago. 

Granted we were told that if we ever tried it, he’d beat all our asses-says he knows what he’s doing and we don’t. Typical parental hypocrisy, that. 

Well okay, and also he only smoked once we were off the highways, in the middle of nowhere, but still. Hypocrisy.

Sue is fun and all, but she won’t smoke weed-when the kids were little, John talked her into smoking again once, and then Tina got sick and they had to go to the emergency room while both parents were stoned. Scared the hell out of Sue and she hasn’t smoked since.

So we’re stuck in a car the three of us, plus Katie, sober, with our Mom for hours on end. I don’t think I really need to say this was a bad idea. 

We were driving along halfway through northern Cali, out in the boonies, when the first incident happened. We’d been amusing ourselves making faces at the three in the car behind us, what wrestling was possible with seat-belts on and endless games of twenty questions. After about two hours we were bored and twitchy, and Sue had threatened disembowelment at least once.

We four quickly decided that we’d smoke a bowl or two out of our sneak-a-toke at the next stopping point. Without Tina and, unfortunately, that meant not including Jay either. 

Jay wasn’t that bad, his relationship with Tina was all sorts of unstable, and sometimes he was a jerk to her, but he was a fun guy. But, he wouldn’t smoke when his girl wasn’t included, and we were tired of sharing with her because she never shared back. Plus, she throws tantrums like a two year old when she gets pissed off.

Okay, so that might be a slight exaggeration. Maybe. 

She’s more like a four year old-bigger vocabulary.

Tina was our Angelica (If you don't get the rugrat's reference there is no hope for you), we loved the hell out of her, but we also regarded her as something to be approached with caution, and she treated us in a similar manner, with a little extra disdain. Still, anyone else tried to fuck with us, or fuck with her, and we'd all be there in a second. 

The next two hours before we stopped for lunch seemed to drag on forever, and Sue was about ready to kill us when we stopped at someplace called “Ella’s Diner”. The van pulled into the diner and we piled out like it was on fire, thoroughly sick of the cramped space. Bobby made an excuse why he needed to get in his bag, and we were off on a walk, claiming we didn’t have an appetite yet and we’d be back, since we were ordering separately anyway. We pretended we didn't see the raised eyebrows, or hear Sue's call of "Be back in 15 minutes!" as we headed off.

The restaurant was situated nicely, right where on both sides of the road there was only woods, plus on one side a creek. It would be easy as hell to find a secluded spot, and we all trooped down the hillside behind the restaurant, towards the creek. 

We found a couple of small boulders to sit on, right at the edge of the water. To tell you the truth it was pretty beautiful, there was a weeping willow right over us and the creek was of the sort that is clean and clear, with lots of pretty rocks on the bottom. 

We smoked a couple quick bowls, having a good time when disaster struck. I was sitting there blowing out my last hit, when we all sort of realized at the same time that there’s a dude standing there watching us, not pleased. 

“Uh, hi,” Shane half-said, half-yelped; as Katie stuffed the pipe in her purse. The man crossed his arms, and chewed a bit at a toothpick sticking out of his mouth.

“If you were my kids, I’d belt all of you.” He was serious as anything, scolding. We all just kind of looked at each other, too embarrassed and horrified to know what to say.

“Sorry sir,” Bobby offered, looking hesitant to say or do anything.

“Alright, up with the lot of you! Your folks in the restaurant? We’ll see what they say about this.” He paused for a second, raising an eyebrow, when I suddenly realized that we were supposed to be moving and scrambled to my feet.

“Um, technically we’re all adults here, sir.” I offered lamely, not realizing till he smirked at me and Bobby groaned, that the “technically” I used negated everything said after that.

“Uh-huh. So you gonna come with me or do I have to go into the restaurant and loudly announce I’m looking for the folks of four delinquents doing drugs by our creek?”

We exchanged horrified glances at the idea of that, and almost as one the other three were on their feet, as I blurted out, blushing, “You don't have to do that! We'll come up with you, promise sir.” 

“Alright, then follow me,” He turned away, calling over his shoulder as he started up the path, “You kids can call me Sheriff Patton, by the way.” I think all four of our mouths dropped open, one thought running collectively through our brain. We were dead. Fucked. We were so fucking dead.

*.*.*.*.*.*


	2. Chapter 2

*.*.*.*.*.*

The climb up that hill seemed to be both the longest and shortest bit of time of I've ever experienced in my life. I wanted to disappear. Or rewind time. Why the hell had we stopped so close to the restaurant? I was kicking myself for that. If we’d walked a quarter mile one way or the other, or better yet crossed the stream, this wouldn’t have happened.

Sheriff Patton seemed not quite as stern or aggressive as he had at first. I suppose maybe he was more used to kids telling him to fuck off and running away (trying to run-away, anyway-he looked fast), then apologizing and ending every sentence with sir. We knew better though, one of the few things we generally can't get away with is disrespect. John and Sue wouldn't be that pissed about us smoking, even if doing so in public in a strange place was pretty stupid. If this Sheriff Patton said we were rude to him-well that would be the clincher.

Who was I kidding, they were going to fucking kill us. They’d dump our bodies somewhere in Nevada as we passed through the desert and tell their relatives we’d decided not to come. 

No one would report me missing. 

My parents had completely written me off six months earlier when I’d finally gotten up the courage to come out to them-a whole two years after I told Sue and John. If that doesn’t sum up the extent of our relationship problems I don’t know what does. 

John and Sue on the other hand were completely awesome, both in general, and about my coming out. I may or may not have witnessed a smug Sue pocketing twenty dollars from John all of five minutes after our conversation. Of course now they were going to want to kill me so there went that…

I knew I was being wildly ridiculous-the worst thing that would happen was a sort of quasi-grounding where they wouldn’t let us do anything fun for a while...probably...but I was nervous and it made the trip slightly faster. As we walked over the crest of the hill and around the side of the restaurant we passed by a patrol car, and Sheriff Patton picked up a stereotypical Sheriff’s hat, like something out of Mayberry, and placed it on his head. 

Shit. Yeah, obvious law enforcement officer walking in with their guilty brood trailing right behind him. They were going to be soooo pissed. Too bad I couldn’t go live in the woods…

We trudged up the steps feeling like we were going to our funeral-or at least that’s how I felt and everyone else looked as bad. We’d gotten tisked at by an older woman, but Sheriff Patton had actually spoken up, saying “There just kids up to a bit of mischief, nothing to worry about Rosemary.” 

It was like being in Mayberry.

The Sheriff opened the door for us and gestured us in, following close behind. Before we could even really look around we heard Jay. “What did you guys do now?” He sounded surprisingly exasperated for someone who ordinarily encouraged us to get into trouble.

As we turned towards Jay’s voice, John looked up, saw us, saw the Sheriff standing next to us, threw down the napkin he’d been wiping his mouth with, and snapped “Ah hell!” All four of us cringed in unison and Sheriff Patton, who had raised an eyebrow at Jay’s comment, smirked. He motioned us all to walk in front as he started towards our table. 

The thing he didn’t know-and that had me quaking in my boots-was that John doesn’t swear. He thinks it destroys the vocabulary and makes you stupid. I have a filthy damn mouth, and get reamed for it regularly. 

I can’t help it-speech patterns are set by the time you’re five!

Anyway to hear John swear was a rare event. The last time the boys and me been heading to the fast food place across from their apartment building, and decided to take a short cut across the middle of the road-we’d thought it was clear, but suddenly there was screeching brakes and John’s terrified face looking at us through the windshield, car hood less than two feet from Shane. He’d gone on a tirade the likes of which I’d never heard before or since once he’d realized we were fine. A tirade delivered mostly to our running backs, 'cause I think we all thought he was about to commit homicide and dipped as fast as we could.

Yeah, that actually made me feel better in comparison. He was nowhere near as mad as he’d been that day. Which was good, because once we'd finally dragged our sorry butt's home, well, let’s just say he did a lot more than yell in the end. It was four years ago, and thinking about it still makes me feel kind of nervous.

Sue had realized what was going on by now, and as we approached the table had stood up, “What happened? Are you alright?” was directed at us, but before we could answer she’d turned to Sheriff Patton, “Did my children do something wrong, officer?”

“Nothing too horrible, Mrs…?” He tipped his hat in polite inquiry. I was becoming fairly convinced that we’d entered some sort of alternate world where in modern society everyone talked like the 1940’s.

Or more likely this small town was its own little time warp.

“Millard, Sue Millard, and this is my husband John,” She put her hand on John’s shoulder and he grabbed his cane and started pulling himself up, ignoring Sheriff Patton’s protests that he needn’t. They shook hands and with a small grin, that I’m fairly certain I wasn’t meant to see, he told them how he found us well we squirmed and Sue and John's faces got grimmer.

“....Now, it’s nothing that some of our own kids here don’t get up to as well, but I just can't have kids smoking down by that creek. They were in plain sight where just anyone could have seen them, and you know around this time of day a lot of our younger kids go to play at the creek.” Sue’s hands were on her hips, and well her face was more exasperated than upset, I felt my nervousness actually increase-something which really shouldn’t have been possible at this point. “Frankly, I have no intention of writing up a group of kids for a bit of pot, but I know as a parent myself I would certainly want to know if my children were getting into that sort of mischief.” 

John cast a stern look at all of us, meeting each of our eyes, “Thank you very much for your understanding, Sheriff. I assure you, I will explain to them exactly where they want wrong today. Exactly.” This last bit was delivered rather grimly before he turned a grateful smile on the sheriff, and as they shook hands again the Sheriff chuckled, shaking his head.

“It’s just George, now that the formalities are out of the way. I’ll let you folks get back to your meal.” Now it was Sue’s turn to shake his hand, and she turned an expectant eye towards us after she thanked him. Shane realized it was a nonverbal “what do you say?” before the rest of us and quickly spoke up.

“Thank you, Sheriff Patton, I really appreciate it. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.” The rest of us quickly followed suit, stammering out our own gratefulness. He just tipped his hat, smiled, and walked away.

He’s the modern version of Andy Griffith. I wonder if his kid’s named something stupid like Opie…

We all stood there for a moment, not really sure what to do. John having collapsed back into his seat a minute before, raised an eyebrow and jerked his head and we all quickly found a spot around the sides of the table. There was a heavy silence for a long moment, broken by Tina, “Is it just me or was that Sherriff like Andy Griffith reincarnated?” 

“Tina!” hissed Sue, looking a bit disapproving. Well I had just been thinking pretty much the same thing, it did seem kind of disrespectful spoken out loud. 

“What? I’m just saying?” She shrugged, “Didn't mean anything by it, he seems like a nice guy.”

Sue sighed, but turned back to us. “We ordered for you when it hit the fifteen minute mark-I know what you like, don't give me those long faces.” Bobby opened his mouth to say something-but Sue eyed him and he quickly shut it. “It should be here any second.”

“Once we're all done eating,” John stated grimly, “You four and I will go and have a talk.” He picked up his water glass and took a sip, still eying us sternly, and I gulped shooting a look at Shane who looked as apprehensive as I did. Okay, so maybe he was madder than he looked...

*.*.*.*.*.*

“Are you trying to get yourselves arrested?” John glared at each of us in turn, eyes narrowed. “Or is it just that you can't go more than a few hours without getting stoned?” Well, there really wasn't a good way to answer that question...

“That's not fair,” Bobby broke in, ever ready to argue with his father, “we haven't smoked all day-I mean till now.”

John looked at him incredulously, leaning over his cane towards his son, “Right...so that smell coming out of your room this morning when we picked you up, what was that exactly?”

“Incense.” I hissed in a breath, surprised at his daring, and John's mouth became a flat line across his wide face. Katie seemed to be trying to hide behind Shane, who had all but frozen, waiting to see what happened next. Bobby's face was as bland as his voice had been flippant, like he didn't realize he was about to die-by way of parental ass kicking that was.

“Boy, I am about this far, this far,” John took a step forward, holding up two fingers that as far as I could see might as well be pressed together, “from tanning the hide right off you. Are you really gonna be a smart ass?” 

The two stared at each other for a moment, and finally, after what seemed like forever, Bobby backed down, lowering his eyes. “...sorry.”

“That's what I thought.” John leaned back, appraising us all again for a long moment. I tried not to squirm. “The lot of you are on a short leash-you know I don't mind you smoking a bit of weed, you're young, you like to party, I get it. But this is a family vacation. Not a National Lampoon road trip movie. Got it?”

We mumbled a chorus of “got it”'s back at him, thoroughly aware that he was both serious-and that we were in plain view of everyone standing just on the end of the parking lot. I knew that realistically no one cared, and wouldn't bother to watch-or if they did, it would be about two seconds long, while thinking, “heh, looks like those kids are in trouble,”-but it was still embarrassing as hell. “Good. Get your asses in the van-I'm driving it this time, Sue has the car.”

Shit.

*.*.*.*.*.*

I glared at my phone as the text message from Tina-or Tina and Jay, since I was sure she let him put his two cents in-sat on the scree, “So, has Dad beaten your asses black and blue yet?” 

I texted back “Bite me.”, and elbowed Shane when he tried to read over my shoulder. “Ask first, brat.”

“I saw it already anyway. Tell her I said to shove it up her ass.”

“Hey,” John called over his shoulder, “I don't know what you're talking about, but knock it off and watch the language.” 

“Fine, tell her I said to shove it up her butt.” Shane grinned slightly to himself, and then immediately stopped when John caught his eye in the rear view mirror and growled his name.

I rolled my eyes, waiting for Tina to text me back, the beep announcing it a few seconds later, “Hey, don't get pissy with me, it's not my fault you got caught by Opie. I should be pissed-you lost me ten bucks.”

“Lol, Andy, not Opie-Opie is the kid. And how the hell did I lose you ten bucks?”

“Me and Jay had a bet-I thought it would take you guys at least a week to get into this much trouble.”

“...I hate you both.” I put the phone back in my pocket, grinning a little. Tina was pretty alright sometimes.


End file.
